Who would have thought we could ever see the end of the Road Warrior? Sales Executives have been helping companies grow for generations and have introduced products, educated markets and created need through their efforts. They have been the driving (literally!) force for some of the World’s greatest companies like Microsoft, GE Capital and Glaxo Smithkline. Many of our most successful business leaders started their careers in sales, but today there is a growing school of thought that the days of on-the- road sales professionals are numbered.
Why? Two reasons:
Google has had a profound impact on sales. In just a few short years Google has taken control away from the sales professionals and given it to the customers. With a quick bash on a keyboard, a customer can identify all of their buying options. They can read product reviews, compare competitive pricing, find suppliers and choose the best option without ever speaking to a sales person.
Firstly ‘Google’ has replaced much of the front-end work sales people do. Customers aren’t waiting for a sales person to contact them. If you were to buy a car these days, you research it yourself on the internet and draw up a shortlist, narrow it down to the one you want. Then you research car dealerships to compare their offerings and see which one offers the best value. You will know exactly which car you want to buy and who to buy from, long before you even speak to a sales person.
The second major influence for the possible extinction of sales reps is unsurprisingly the rising price of fuel. In less than two years petrol prices have soared by more than 30%. Indeed despite the Chancellor’s 1p cut in duty in the latest budget, the average price of a litre of petrol has risen 15.8p a litre since the beginning of the year. The annual cost of a sales person who drives an average of 500 miles per week has therefore increased by £4,108 per year. This may not seem like much, but imagine as a company, you had 100 sales reps on the road. That is a £411K increase in the sales force’s cost of sales! Should you instead re direct that investment to more productive marketing efforts? Imagine you put that money into Internet marketing programs? Would you be better off? Most likely!
So if customers are circumventing the sales process by getting information on their own and the cost to travel is forcing sales people to think twice about trekking across the country, sales forces must become much more strategic about how they engage, support and sell to their customers. They also must think about how they are differentiating themselves from the competition. Ask yourself; what are you doing to add value? This is how to secure the business and increase your conversion rate and therefore offset the cost of servicing that customer. Going forward the increasing costs of an outside sales force means companies have to focus these expensive resources to where they will have the most impact such as negotiations and strategic account management. Otherwise, conducting business as usual could be fiscal suicide.
